The present disclosure relates to a technology for detecting a side impact on a vehicle.
Conventionally, there are known various vehicle impact sensors for detecting occurrence of a collision in the event of a vehicle accident. For example, disclosed in Japanese Patent Application No. 2007-172262, incorporated by reference herein, is a system for detecting a side impact on the vehicle with a G sensor or a contact sensor that is actuated in a vehicle side impact crash.
However, if a vehicle occupant is restrained by an occupant restraint system such as an airbag module in a vehicle accident, an advanced detecting technology is desired which is capable of immediately detecting occurrence of a collision on the vehicle in order to improve the occupant restraining property. In a side impact crash as described in Japanese Application 2007-172262, there is nothing between a vehicle occupant and a colliding object but a vehicle door. In addition, especially in case of a side impact in which a colliding object such as a utility pole collides with a vehicle door from a side, the intrusion of the colliding object into a vehicle inner side of the vehicle door is quick. Therefore, in case of a side impact crash, it is required to determine the mode of the side impact crash in a shorter time than that for a head-on crash. Therefore, it is desired to properly determine whether the occurred side impact is likely to need to immediately restrain the vehicle occupant or is a minor impact which is not likely to need or does not need to immediately restrain the vehicle occupant, taking into consideration that the vehicle door is easily displaced even with an impact by an object other than road structures and roadside structures, for example, a shopping cart, a ball, or a bat.
It would be desirable to provide a technology to quickly and properly detect the impact mode in the event of a vehicle side impact crash.